My Three Chambered Heart Novels & Stories

Jesse blinked at the gleaming marble floors, the crystal chandeliers, the fresh-cut orchids arranged like art installations. "You live here alone?" he asked. Alina walked ahead, heels tapping like a ticking clock. "Alone is underrated." As they passed through a gallery hallway-lined with modern art that probably cost more than his old neighborhood-Jesse stopped in front of a sculpture that looked like two twisted metal hearts. "What's this one called?" "'Affection Fatigue,'" Alina said dryly. "By a French artist who only works during breakups." "Cheerful." She shot him a look. "You'll get used to it. Come on."

“That’s all it is.” Dr. Walker’s expression doesn’t change. He sets the chart down and clasps his hands in front of him. “We ran some tests after you were admitted. Your asthma certainly contributed to your breathing difficulties, but it’s not the root cause.” He pauses, letting the words sink in. “You have a congenital heart defect. Specifically, a hole in your heart.”

The heart is a strange thing, with a hundred different avenues leading in and out with each breath, each steady pump, and so many chambers. I didn’t really understand that until this very moment. That there were so many different little pockets to this one organ that, up until a few seconds ago, was just the thing that made me live.

The Architecture of the Heart "It’s a logistical nightmare," Rhys muttered, though a rare smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. He was checking the "Compatibility-Grid" on his ledger. "We have a groom who breathes oxygen and a bride whose heart-core runs on pressurized thermal-vapor. If the atmospheric seal on her pressure-suit fails during the vows, she’ll freeze—and he’ll be scalded."

The sensation of a heart turning to stone is not a sudden numbness. It is a slow, rhythmic agony of friction. Every time my left ventricle contracted to pump blood through my body, I felt the microscopic grind of quartz crystals forming along the myocardial wall. Silas was right about the biology of the Palace. The Elder resonance was too dense for a mature human vascular system. To channel the power of a god, you had to become the altar.

Focused. "Mrs. Caldwell, Chance's heart, it's not functioning as well as we'd like. The right ventricle is struggling. The pulmonary valve is more stenotic than previous scans showed. He's, he's compensating. But we need to monitor this closely. Very closely." "What does that mean? Is he, is he okay?"